Meve Shakespeare got her start as a nurse at the Grenada School of Nursing / Midwifery, immigrating to the United States as a young adult. Ms. Shakespeare has been a nurse for 31 years.
After her arrival, she started in home care segueing into long-term care and geriatrics, a field she enjoyed. “There is a need for work with and to raise the level of the quality of care with the elderly,” she thought, wanting to be a part.
For the last 15 years, Ms. Shakespeare has been at the 364-bed Cobble Health Center, where the average stay is three to six weeks. For the last three years, she has been the director of nursing.
“They’re doing more with sub-acute and short term care,” she explains, of the growing demand for rehabilitation centers. Ms. Shakespeare observes that her facility is getting some very sick patients who require higher level of clinical skills.
In addition to her supervisory and staff monitoring capacity, Ms. Shakespeare teaches and trains procedures such as intravenous application, dialysis and treatment of complex wounds. Of particular importance, she notes, are the procedures for patient documentation so that proper information is passed shift-to-shift and between the nurses and the doctors.
A firm believer in professional development, Ms. Shakespeare encourages higher levels of education and expanded areas of certification among her staff. She says, “I’ve guided some nurses from being a CNA to an LPN to an RN.”
Good outcomes, staff satisfaction and good survey results are all part of what Ms. Shakespeare deems as success.
But, she cites her humble beginnings and her faith in God as being her greatest motivation, creating for her a desire to aim high and not give up despite the odds.
